We’ve all seen those junkyard machines that can crush a vehicle into a tiny cube that weighs about a ton. But I’m wondering…what’s the point? If they’re going to use the car for scrap, wouldn’t it be better to separate all the metals from plastics first?
I believe that before they are crushed or flattened they remove all the non metal materials (door handles, interior trim, seats) as well as ‘wrong’ metals (lock cylinders?). Then they are crushed or flattened for transporting.
But I could be wrong.
You don’t crush 'em right away.
First you pick off all the reusable salvage and hazardous stuff like batteries, then you strip off reclaimable recyclable plastic, and glass, tires, etc.
These days, in most scrap yards the rubble and junk that is left over from the crushing is sorted and recycled.
What’s left is considered unusable, and the point of compacting it is just to make it fit into the landfill better.
Most of the time spent in scrapping a vehicle goes into picking the bones before it goes into the compactor – you don’t just chuck a car in there intact.
“You have 30 minutes to move your cube.”
All the non-metal stuff in there melts/burns in the furnace anyway. The cubes are just for ease of transport.
No where on Earth are crushed cars dumped into landfills. They’re sold as scrap metal and melted down. They’re often transported dozens at a time via flatbed tractor trailers and being small cubes makes this much easier.
“Is it about my cube?”
There’s EU legislation on the way that makes it mandatory to have a certain percentage of car parts easily recyclable with regards mixes of plastics in the car.
While on a road trip I think it was in North Carolina that I saw an interesting use for crushed cars. They were stacked up on the shore of a creek near a bridge. The dirt was backfilled on the other side.
Could this be the solution for New Orlenes levies?
Car cubes? Nah, the really cool way to recycle cars is the Shredder.